"All servants imported and brought into the country... who were not Christians in their native country... shall be accounted and be slaves, and as such be here bought and sold notwithstanding a conversion to Christianity afterwards... If any slave resist his master... and shall happen to be killed in such correction, it shall not be accounted felony." — An Act Concerning Servants and Slaves, Virginia Slave Code (1705)
Which legal change is most clearly enacted by this excerpt?
- A
The extension of full English subjecthood to all baptized Africans
- B
A ban on the importation of enslaved Africans into Virginia
- Ccheck_circle
The codification of hereditary, race-based chattel slavery defined by non-Christian origin
- D
The abolition of indentured servitude in favor of wage labor
Explanation
The 1705 code consolidated earlier statutes by defining slave status by ancestry and "heathen" origin, ensuring baptism would not free the enslaved and shielding masters from prosecution for killing slaves during punishment.